Keeping Up With Pcs Innovations Help Old Workhorses Hold Their Place On Office Desks

May 12, 1986|By Jack Snyder of The Sentinel Staff

In the late 1800s, a typist had to lift the carriage of his typewriter to see what he had written. The first machines in which the operator could actually see the letters as they were typed were considered quite an innovation.

Today, typewriter manufacturers are making astounding advancements almost on a year-to-year basis.

Don Larson, manager of retail outlets for George Stuart Inc., an Orlando-based business supplier, said typewriter manufacturers made a decision to move into high technology with a vengeance about three years ago. And the technology has moved forward in ''leaps and bounds'' since then, Larson said. Electronic typewriters today tie in with computers and can be used as printers.

''Interfacing with a computer is common,'' Larson said.

Some models have extensive memory capability and screens like word processors.

''You can type the text, make corrections and everything before anything touches paper,'' Larson said.

Others provide spell-right features with more than 50,000 words stored in the memory, Larson said.

''You type in the letters you know, such as O-R-G for organization,'' he said. ''The machine will pull up all the words with that prefix. When you see organization, you punch a button and it puts it in the text.

Some models emit a beep to let the typist know a word has been misspelled. The high-technology approach virtually ensures that the typewriter -- albeit in ever changing and more sophisticated forms -- will continue as a staple of the nation's offices, a spokesman for the National Office Machine Dealers Association said.

''Manufacturers see an ever-enlarging market for the electronic typewriter,'' the spokesman for the Kansas City, Mo., trade association said. Penny Capria, manager of Jim Blake's Office Product Center on South Orlando Avenue in Winter Park, said electonic typewriters with the sophisticated technology are in strong demand by business.

IBM is probably the most popular manufacturer in her shop, she said.

Fierce competition has driven the cost of electronic typewriters down, said Larson. He said the electronic machines today range in price from just under $300 to a little more than $600.

By contrast, old manual typewriters ranged in price from as low as $30 for a small portable to about $350.

Lee Thompson, president and chief executive officers of Smith Corona, said his company doesn't compete in the office-machine market, instead concentrating on portables and compact electronic typewriters for the home and the small office.

Elaborate word-processing systems, usually costing about $2,500 and up, are too expensive for the small office and that's the fastest growing segment of office space in the country, Thompson said.

Small offices -- those with five employees or fewer -- don't have a need for the elaborate word-processing systems, he said.

Smith Corona last year introduced a personal word processor than can be connected to an electronic typewriter. The unit, which uses the typewriter as a printer, retails for $499 and provides plenty of word-processing capability for the home and small office use, Thompson said.

The typewriter is a lot older than many people think.

Records show efforts were being made to develop a writing machine in the early 1700s, according to the Encyclopaedia Britannica, but it wasn't until 1867 that the first practical machine was perfected.

The first office typists were secretaries, almost exclusively women years ago. Historians credit the typewriter as opening the doors of business to women by creating more jobs for them.

In addition to the visible printing line, early advancements included a movable paper carriage that greatly speeded the typing process. Other improvements included portables and erasing errors through chemically treated correcting ribbon.

The first electrically operated typing machine is credited to inventor Thomas Edison, who produced a model in 1872. But that machine was developed into the ticker-tape printer once used in stock brokerages.

It wasn't until the 1920s that the electric typewriter was introduced into offices.

Major steps forward were made in the 1960s when a sphere-shaped typing element eliminated the movable paper carriage and greatly increased speed.